Markets and Agricultural Change in Europe from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century

The main target of this book is to explore how the involvement of rural populations and communities in different kinds of markets (mainly for agricultural commodities) has influenced the management of rural land in Europe. Most of the papers focus on precisely what were the forces driving agricultural change in rural Europe. Although the importance of these changes were very different from the Middle Ages until the present days, a common approach that emerged was to stress the importance of urban and external markets in order to give incentives to changes in the management of rural land. The transition of agriculture and its producers, respectively, into a highly market-integrated sector and strongly market-oriented peasants formed the driving force and prima causa of European agricultural revolutions during early modern times. Expansion of market allowed for an intense process of specialization, with clear competitive advantages with respect to earlier land uses.