Based on extensive archival research encompassing over eighty rural authorities in Wales, this essay pieces together fragmentary evidence to reveal the main contours of rural responses to infectious outbreaks from the 1870s to the 1918/10 influenza pandemic. At the centre of the essay are those practical, short-term measures that have hitherto been overlooked in the historiography. While infectious outbreaks did have the capacity to extend sanitary initiatives over the medium and long term, looking at how rural authorities reacted to infectious disease helps us better understand how public health practices translated into action at a local level. In doing so, the essay untangles both the nature of rural responses and the challenges confronted by rural sanitary officials when confronted with infectious outbreaks and how they had to adapt public health orthodoxy to different rural environments.

This paper seeks to show that encroachments in the North-east resulted from a range of social and economic drivers. Encroachments were enacted by members of a wide social spectrum, resulting in both top-down and bottom-up manifestations of engrossment of holdings. In this respect, it may be argued, North-east encroachments have a distinctive nature compared to English enclosures. The factors effecting encroachment can be seen to relate to topographic opportunism, demographic fluctuation, and a socio-agricultural environment that was already well-attuned to utilising dynamic settlement fluctuations for social and economic benefits. Only after the enactment of the 1695 Division of the Commonties Act did the socially diverse nature of such encroachment become increasingly monopolised by the landed gentry and began to reflect more closely English enclosure.

The economic success of the intensive poultry and pork sectors is a milestone in the Spanish economic history of the past seven decades. This work analyses the boom in the chicken and pork businesses in Spain, verifying the strengths and weaknesses of both livestock models, and drawing conclusions in relation to the agribusiness system. The influence of chicken and pork in the booming Spanish meat sector is analysed from the perspectives of livestock farming and agroindustry, followed by the impact of both forms of intensive livestock farming on Spain’s domestic consumption and foreign trade. The similarities and differences in their evolution are identified from the perspective of two food supply models: a predominance of economies of scale until the 1980s, and of so-called economies of scope since that time. While the development of mass production in both intensive livestock businesses followed a similar pattern, the progressive segmentation of the market towards higher quality, more artisanal and sustainable products has greatly favoured the sector more deeply rooted in rural tradition: pork.

Post-enclosure charity lands in the period before the establishment of the charity commission in 1818 pose some fundamental questions. The amount and types of payment that recipients received, how they shifted over the period, and how the spectrum of relief adjusted to the massive macro-level changes – particularly the improvement in poor labourers’ standards of living that occurred between c.1660 and c.1760 – are all of interest. By focusing on a dataset derived from an account book for a charity in Mere (Wiltshire) between 1656 and 1739, this paper reveals how the parish authorities coped with the developing economic polarities in rural society and made changes over time in the size and significance of the doles made from the funds arising from the charity lands, indicating the inextricably mixed nature of welfare – the balance between the different financial resources available both from formal relief and parish charities – in this period.

This paper delves into the dynamics of popular revolt in early modern Castile, taking as a viewpoint a revealing feature of these disturbances, the bell-ringing widely known as rebato, an equivalent to the French tocsin. While alarm bells have long been recognised as a prevalent element of popular revolt in Europe from medieval times, they have received limited specific scholarly attention. This study provides an overview of the historical significance of this distinctive sound and examines its material aspects. Subsequently, the paper investigates several instances of bell-ringing during Castilian riots, as reflected in archival sources, and analyses its meaning both for townspeople and the authorities. In attempting to elucidate the reasons behind the aversion this sound provoked among the privileged classes and the authorities, the study explores the political, ritual, and sonic dimensions of the rebato.

The nutritional transition, together with the demographic and epidemiological transitions, stands as one of the most crucial phenomena shaping societies in the 20th century. A prominent characteristic of the nutritional transition is the increased consumption of animal-origin protein, particularly meat. Within this context, the present article utilises Spain as a case study to provide a close examination of the nutritional transition during the latter half of the 20th century. Spain’s significance lies in its late but rapid development of this transition. In the 1960s, meat consumption was relatively low compared to other European countries; however, within just two decades, it surpassed that of many developed nations. On one hand, the article offers a detailed insight into how budget constraints were eased to foster meat consumption among various consumer groups. On the other hand, the study aims to quantify the influence of income, prices, and preferences in driving this process

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of wheat quality in the formation of wheat prices in the early modern period, adopting eighteenth-century northern Italy as a case study. Wheat prices have been widely used by economic historians to calculate living standards, determine the degree of market integration, and date famines. Rarely, however, have economic historians focused on how wheat prices were determined. By looking at the wheat supply chain, we will try to make more visible the extent to which wheat quality was crucial in determining the value of wheat and, as a consequence, the final price of grain.

This paper examines the presence of Reeves’ pheasant (Syrmaticus reevesii) in Britain. It investigates how encounters between British people and Reeves’ pheasant informed their imaginings of the species, from its first introduction into Britain from China in 1831 to 1913 when a serious decline in its numbers began. Drawing on natural history texts, records from the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, technical literature on pheasant rearing, and extracts from periodicals, magazines, and generalist encyclopaedias, this paper shows how imagined and physical encounters with Reeves’ pheasant, by naturalists, acclimatisers, pheasant enthusiasts, and sportsmen, informed shifting constructions of the species, which influenced and shaped its presence in Britain.

This article investigates the development of rural migration in northern Sweden (1850–1950). During this period, northern Sweden experienced a slower rate of urbanisation than the rest of the country. This study proposes that decentralised industrialisation (i.e., rural-industrial labour, predominantly in the timber industry) introduced inertia to the urbanisation process by lowering the rate of rural-to-urban migration. Using longitudinal, individual-level data from the county of Västerbotten, the development of migration rates and migrant characteristics is explored via descriptive statistics. The rural population’s development and migration patterns closely correlate to the development of decentralised industrialisation. The results, therefore, indicate that decentralised industrialisation is a viable model for explaining the slow rate of urbanisation in northern Sweden.

The article addresses the issue of wealth accumulation by peasant farmers in the post-emancipation era in the Russian Baltic province of Livonia. The Baltic emancipation schemes stand out as the least beneficial for peasants as they set neither time limits nor land price levels, and the state government did not provide any credit to the purchasers of farms. However, in northern Livonia the nominal value of peasant farmers’ wealth grew as much as tenfold from 1850 to 1913. The study reveals that the advantages and disadvantages of high farm purchase prices should be considered in combination with other factors affecting agricultural growth. In the Baltic context, the large size of the farms, land consolidation, well-developed infrastructure, and the commercialisation of production helped the farm owners amass a relatively large amount of wealth within a generation. Technological improvement also contributed to the rise in productivity and wealth.

The gamekeeper played an important role in the development of modern gamebird shooting but has been peripheral in many analyses of the sport, which have tended to focus on the poacher, the landed elite, or the game laws. This study places the gamekeeper in a central position and, for a selection of counties, provides a detailed examination and comparison of changes in gamekeeper numbers between 1851 and 1921. The influence on gamekeeper numbers of population changes, estate area, landowner numbers and poaching prosecutions were also examined. Significant differences were found between the counties in gamekeeper numbers, and the magnitude and timing of changes in these. Average estate area varied greatly with no direct link to the area of the county, or to the number of gamekeepers on an estate. The type of quarry and interest of the landowner were important in determining the number of gamekeepers employed. In some counties, there may have been a link between the level of poaching and gamekeeper numbers, but there were significant differences between the counties. The results indicated a complex, regionally nuanced, picture in which factors such as the location, primary quarry and poaching pressure, as well as the interests of the landowner and the depth of his pockets, determined gamekeeper numbers.

From the thirteenth until the 18th century, the county of Flanders knew a special citizen status for rural residents. Country dwellers, normally residing under the jurisdiction and fiscality of lordships, could register themselves as external citizens or ‘outburghers’. Outburghership has primarily been researched within the context of state building and urban studies. This contribution prioritizes the perspective of the countryside. Studies on premodern Flanders have shown that the counts and cities tried to undermine the power of local lords by providing as many seigneurial subjects as possible with fiscal and judicial exemptions to the lords’ justice and taxes. The accessibility of outburghership and its varying appeal along time and space has not been adequately researched. This study argues that the heyday of outburghership in Flanders was between 1300 and 1550. After 1600, outburghership endured as defence mechanism against seigneurial lordship until both institutions met their demise in 1795.

This paper analyses the formation in Italy of a school system focused on the training of technical and managerial personnel in the agricultural sector. Drawing on a rich literature on the relationship between school training, social change, and economic modernisation, this study details an under-researched aspect of the formation of the national state. Italy constitutes an exemplary case study as for the reforming action of public institutions in the field of education as well as the modernising policies that concerned the rural sector of the country before the First World War. Schools of agriculture in Italy became a means of social advancement not only for a wide sector of rural society but also for the children of the artisan and commercial bourgeoisie of small urban centres. This study thereby makes a novel contribution to the ongoing debate on the development of agriculture-related professions in Italy between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Armando Palacio Valdés characterised the Asturian village of Sama de Langreo in his novel La aldea perdida (1903), as an unusual example of an industrialised population entity through four variables: the sale of fresh meat, the existence of street lighting, cafés, and public greenspaces. The aim of this article is to verify the author’s approach by comparing the state of the rest of the Asturian parishes at the time of the novel (1879). To do this, a methodology combining the use of literary sources and the analysis of historical documentary sources will be applied. The results obtained confirm the Asturian author’s assessment of the industrialisation process in Sama as an exceptional milestone for the province, as well as evidencing the slow pace of industrialisation in the rest of the Asturian parishes.

The Sandringham Estate was purchased in 1862 by the Prince of Wales to be his home away from London. This article uses a variety of sources to chart the changes to the estate as the prince developed his new holding. The acquisition required staff at all levels and in many and varied roles, which gave opportunities to local people and to those who moved in from further away. The countryside changed dramatically too with new plantations of trees and significantly increased rearing of game birds. There were benefits for the local population in having a royal landlord but there was also tension related to the prince’s predilection for blood sports and his level of control. The hitherto nearly invisible lower ranks of staff on this royal estate come to the fore in this article, which is a striking example of ‘history from below’ set immediately beside the royal family.

This article explores the competitive hoeing matches, which were a significant feature of certain parts of Scottish rural life in the period 1840 to 1940. An analysis of newspaper reports shows how important such matches were in Aberdeenshire, attracting significant numbers of both competitors and spectators. By contrast, similar reports for the rest of Scotland show only a small number of such matches outside the northeast. Reasons for the differences are attributed to both material factors, such as the visibility of cultivation, and the social structure of the areas. In Aberdeenshire, a culture valorising hard work and skill was set in a social structure of small farmers and farm servants, which led to self-sustaining organisational forms. By contrast, elsewhere a top-down form of organisation prioritising the needs of farm productivity meant that competitive hoeing matches failed to kindle much enthusiasm. The value of a focus on taken-for-granted practices is the way it can shed light on such contrasts.

This article considers the relationship of two prominent leaders of British women’s temperance, Lady Henry Somerset and Lady Elizabeth Biddulph. They were noteworthy for taking opposing sides when the British Women’s Temperance Association divided on the question of the political reach of its work. Somerset and Biddulph were elite women, daughters of earls and near neighbours around Ledbury, a centre of cider apple and hop cultivation in Herefordshire. Both made their first temperance pledge in the area. We examine their geographical proximity and consider the importance of local agricultural labour and landscapes to their temperance work.

Who chooses new technology? And how? In this article, we explore the diffusion of agricultural science and technology in Galicia (Spain), and the ways in which farmers adopted innovations in the period of 1880–1940 within the Atlantic Iberian agricultural context of small farms. To answer these questions, we adopt a socio-institutional approach and also an environmental one, changes in breeding techniques and the creation of the Galician Blond cow, as well as the widespread use of threshing machines, which were two closely related innovations in the context of mixed farming agriculture. These two examples illustrate the fusion of science-based and practice-based agriculture, and how technology did not threaten community or family equilibrium; instead, it empowered processes that were already operative in affirming small-scale farming.

The aim of this article is to investigate how the characteristics of the different types of human settlements explain their demographic dynamics and, therefore, which of these have been affected to a greater extent by depopulation processes. For this purpose, we analyse the evolution of the population of Aragón (north-east Spain) in the period 1900–2001, according to the different types of population settlements that exist. Our results show that access to public services has played an essential role, especially when the construction of the welfare state made the rural population feel that there was a penalty for residing in settlements with problems to access them. The main settlements, headquarters of the municipal administration, have had advantages over the secondary settlements. Finally, the scattered population was the most affected and, therefore, emigrated to a greater extent, until this form of residence practically disappeared.

This study deals with shared ideas about the countryside and its inhabitants during the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. It identifies the most significant sources of contemporary representations of the rural. These include, besides historical ideas pre-dating the regime, the party-state itself, expert structures, the arts, and pop culture. In many cases, representations encompassed efforts to transform the countryside, or society, or to maintain the status quo, and, following de Certeau, we can consider such activities to be strategies. On the other hand, villagers approached these representations and strategies using their own tactics. This study demonstrates that rural policymaking was not just in the hands of power structures; the effects it had depended a great deal on the dominated rural inhabitants.