Influence of the Mining and Metallurgical Industry on the Countryside and Peasant Farming

Abstract

This article analyses the influence of mining and metallurgical industry on the rural environment and peasant farming in early modern Poland (16th-18th centuries), drawing on the manorial records of the bishopric of Cracow in the Zagłębie Staropolskie basin for the period 1746-1806.
The author first defines the socio-economic model of the feudal mining and metallurgical industry enterprise in Poland, characterized by six criteria: the integration of industrial production into the village environment, the feudal monopoly on land ownership, the seigneurial organization of labour under the corvée system, capital requirements exceeding the means of the average nobleman, and weak links with the national market. The empirical basis consists of the manorial registers of eight estates of the bishopric of Cracow. The analysis identifies four types of spatial structure of rural settlements and two types of occupational and rural social structure of peasant communities, according to their degree of integration into industrial production.
The findings show that the influence of metallurgical industry on the countryside operated in two distinct zones: zone A, where industrial colonization of feudal type radically transformed the rural landscape, weakened the ties of the feudal economy and broadened possibilities of professional and social mobility, and zone B, where agriculture remained the primary basis of peasant farming, the feudal apparatus functioned in its full extent, and rapid industrialization tended to deepen feudal dependency.
The industry did not alter the macroeconomic structure of feudal Poland, but generated important processes of regionalization and reorganization of large landed estates, while broadening the range of non-agricultural occupations in rural communities.