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Description: Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe
Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe
buy the print edition
  • Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe
  • Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe
  • People, Markets, Goods: Economies and Societies in History
  • Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe
  • Copyright
  • Dedication
  • Illustrations
  • Contributors
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • Introduction: Towards a Comparative History of Europe’s Labour Laws, c.1350–1850
  • Part I: Regulating Agricultural Workers C.1350–1600
  • 1 Attitudes to Wage Labour in English Legislation, 1349–1601
  • 2 Agricultural Workers and their Contractual Terms of Employment in Marseille, 1349–1400
  • 3 The Ties that Bind: Mezzadria and Labour Regulations after the Black Death in Florence and Siena, 1348–c.1500
  • Part II: The Regulation and Classification of Labour in Early Modern Europe
  • 4 Slaves, Servants and other Dependent People: Early Modern Classifications and Western Europe’s Self-Representation
  • 5 The Servant, the Law and the State: Servant Law in Denmark–Norway, c.1600–1800
  • 6 Labour Legislation and Rural Servants in the southern Low Countries, c.1600–1800
  • 7 Dimensions of Free and Unfree Labour in the Swedish Servant Acts, 1664–1858
  • Part III: The Experiences of Regulation
  • 8 Objecting to Youth: Popular Attitudes to Service as a Form of Social and Economic Control in England, 1564–1641
  • 9 Exposed Lives: Compulsory Service and ‘Vagrancy’ Practices in Sweden in the 1830s
  • 10 The Moral Economy of Compulsory Service: Labour Regulations in Law and Practice in Nineteenth-Century Iceland
  • People, Markets, Goods: Economies and Societies in History
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© Contributors 2023
Some rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, any part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)
This title is available under the Open Access licence CC–BY–NC–ND Funded by the European Research Council, the Research Foundation Flanders and the University of Iceland
First published 2023
The Boydell Press, Woodbridge
ISBN 978–1–78327–768–1 paperback
ISBN 978–1–80543–008–7 ePUB
The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA
website: www.boydellandbrewer.com
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate
Cover image: ‘Harvest time’ by Myles Birket Foster. Private Collection Photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images. Cover design: 1981d.co.uk

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Description: Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe
Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe
buy the print edition
View details
    • Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe
    • Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe
    • People, Markets, Goods: Economies and Societies in History
    • Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe
    • Copyright
    • Dedication
    • Illustrations
    • Contributors
    • Acknowledgements
    • Abbreviations
    • Introduction: Towards a Comparative History of Europe’s Labour Laws, c.1350–1850
    • Part I: Regulating Agricultural Workers C.1350–1600
    • 1 Attitudes to Wage Labour in English Legislation, 1349–1601
    • 2 Agricultural Workers and their Contractual Terms of Employment in Marseille, 1349–1400
    • 3 The Ties that Bind: Mezzadria and Labour Regulations after the Black Death in Florence and Siena, 1348–c.1500
    • Part II: The Regulation and Classification of Labour in Early Modern Europe
    • 4 Slaves, Servants and other Dependent People: Early Modern Classifications and Western Europe’s Self-Representation
    • 5 The Servant, the Law and the State: Servant Law in Denmark–Norway, c.1600–1800
    • 6 Labour Legislation and Rural Servants in the southern Low Countries, c.1600–1800
    • 7 Dimensions of Free and Unfree Labour in the Swedish Servant Acts, 1664–1858
    • Part III: The Experiences of Regulation
    • 8 Objecting to Youth: Popular Attitudes to Service as a Form of Social and Economic Control in England, 1564–1641
    • 9 Exposed Lives: Compulsory Service and ‘Vagrancy’ Practices in Sweden in the 1830s
    • 10 The Moral Economy of Compulsory Service: Labour Regulations in Law and Practice in Nineteenth-Century Iceland
    • People, Markets, Goods: Economies and Societies in History

Details

Description: Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe
Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe
Stable URL:https://openaccess.boydellandbrewercms.com/?id=-256957
Open Access license
Explores the variety of legal and regulatory regimes that existed in Western Europe to control labour and how workers experienced those controls.

Many economic historians have assumed that labour in Western Europe was 'free' after the end of serfdom in the fifteenth century. These assumptions are increasingly being questioned and labour laws have been identified as creating significant restrictions on workers' freedom. This collection is the first book to look at labour laws across Western Europe from a longer-term perspective. It is interdisciplinary in nature bringing together studies in social, political, economic and legal history.

Elements of labour legislation appeared before the Black Death, but were strengthened afterwards particularly in places and periods where labour became scarce. The collection focuses on the rural economy in the late medieval and early modern period. It provides a series of studies which introduce a range of approaches to labour regulation and the very idea of labour across Europe. Uniquely, the collection offers observations on the impact of labour laws on everyday social relations. Attempts to regulate work and labour varied widely: in places they amounted to wishful thinking on the part of the regional authorities, whereas elsewhere they could impose severe limitations on individual freedoms.

Contributors: Davide Cristoferi, Theresa Johnsson, Thijs Lambrecht, Charmian Mansell, Francine Michaud, Hanne Østhus, Raffaella Sarti, Carolina Uppenberg and Jane Whittle.
PublisherBoydell Press
Print publication date May, 2023
Print ISBN 9781783277681
EISBN 9781805430087

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"Copyright." In Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe. Boydell Press, 2023. Accessed May 11, 2025. Librios IMS, https://openaccess.boydellandbrewercms.com/?id=-256961CITANCHOR.
"Copyright." In Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe. Boydell Press, 2023. Accessed May 11, 2025. https://openaccess.boydellandbrewercms.com/?id=-256961CITANCHOR.
Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe
Librios IMS
Boydell Press
March 9, 2023
May 11, 2025
https://openaccess.boydellandbrewercms.com/?id=-256961CITANCHOR