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The Other Proletarians: Seasonal Labourers, Mercenaries and Miners

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2009

Jan Lucassen
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The emergence of wage labour in Europe has traditionally been seen as a transition from peasant agriculture to employment in urban industries involving permanent migration from rural areas to the cities. In this context migration was often depicted as a flight from the land forced by enclosure or by famine. This particular form of proletarianization-cumurbanization was indeed of major historical significance. Recently, how-ever, many historians have tried to shift the emphasis in another direction. According to one such scholar, Charles Tilly, European demographic growth from the Middle Ages to the late nineteenth century was caused predominantly by the proletarianization outside the cities which was induced by the modernization of agriculture and, above all, by proto-industry. Migration also plays an important role in this model. Firstly, early modern European proletarianization led to net migration losses of European proletarians who left for white settlement colonies, as in the cases of Spain, England and southern Germany. Secondly, proletarianization had major mobilizing effects on the rural population by way of short-distance and temporary or seasonal migration, followed by long-distance migration during the nineteenth century. As a rule, proto-industry caused indirect proletarianization through self-employment which brought the work to the labourers rather than causing migration.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 39 , supplement S2: Before the Unions. Wage earners and collective action in Europe, 1300–1850 , August 1994 , pp. 171 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1994

References

1 Tilly, C., “Demographic Origins of the European Proletariat”, in Levine, D. (ed.), Proletarianization and Family History (Orlando, 1984), pp. 1–61Google Scholar. An important possibility, not mentioned by Tilly, is proletarianization through the liquidation of the slave status; see Svanidze, A. A., “Town Handicraft and Hired Labour in Mediaeval Sweden, the 13th to Early 15th Centuries”, in Guarducci, A. (ed.), Forme ed evoluzione del lavoro in Europa: XIII-XVIII secc. (Prato, 1991), pp. 559–590, esp. pp. 584–585Google Scholar.

2 See the contributions to this volume by Christian Simon on “manufactures” (a form of proto-industry which involves wage labour rather than self-employment) and Anders Florén on rural industries of both types, and the literature quoted by them.

3 Ortmayr, N. (ed.), Knechte. Autobiographische Dokumente und sozialhistorische Skizzen (Vienna [etc.], 1992), pp. 297ffGoogle Scholar. This might also be applicable to Portugal: ibid., p. 77.

4 Ibid., p. 331.

5 Ibid., pp. 318–319 (in Switzerland these groups were called Knabenschaften, in Austria Zechen, Ruden or Passen), and p. 326.

6 Another reason is the bound character of many of these relations, as in England up to the beginning of the eighteenth century; see Steinfeld, R. J., The Invention of Free Labor: The Employment Relation in English and American Law and Culture, 1350–1870 (Chapel Hill and London, 1991)Google Scholar. This does not apply to all countries in western Europe, e.g. for the Netherlands see Lucassen, J., “Labour and Early Modern Economic Development”, in Davids, K. and Lucassen, J. (eds), A Miracle Mirrored: The Dutch Republic from a European Perspective (Cambridge, forthcoming, 1995)Google Scholar.

7 Lucassen, J., Migrant Labour in Europe 1600–1900: The Drift to the North Sea (Beckenham, 1987), p. 110Google Scholar.

8 Ibid., pp. 194ff. In eastern Europe this growth was even more spectacular during the second half of the nineteenth century, see p. 127.

9 For reasons given before, this article restricts itself mainly to work in rural areas. However, seasonal work also occurred in the cities, e.g. calico printing, see the contribution by Christian Simon.

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12 For the following see Lourens and Lucassen, Lipsker, pp. 37–41.

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14 Lucassen, Migrant Labour, pp. 64–71.

15 Ibid., pp. 101–105, 115, 122–123, 278–281; for Germany, see Schaer, F.-W., “Zur wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Lage der Deicharbeiter an der oldenburgisch-ostfriesischen Küste in der vorindustriellen Gesellschaft”, Niedersächisisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte, 45 (1973), pp. 115–144Google Scholar.

16 Burton, A., The Canal Builders (London, 1972)Google Scholar and compare Way, P., Common Labour: Workers and the Digging of North American Canals 1780–1860 (Cambridge, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for the extensive literature on railway navvies, I will only mention the classics: Coleman, T., The Railway Navvies: A History of The Men Who Made The Railways (Harmondsworth, 1965)Google Scholarand Handley, J., The Navvy in Scotland (Cork, 1970)Google Scholar; for the Netherlands: Geelhoed, A., “Spades are Trumps. Strikes of Navvies at the Construction of the Utrecht-Arnhem Railway, 1840–1843”, in van Voss, L. Heerma and Diederiks, H. (eds), Industrial Conflict. Papers presented to the Fourth British-Dutch Conference on Labour History (Amsterdam, 1988), pp. 147–164Google Scholar.

17 Brassey, T., On Work and Wages (London, 1872), pp. 264–265Google Scholar.

18 De Hullu and Verhoeven, Vierlingh, p. 103 (“de schattinge ende waerderinghe van de aerde ende spijse aen den dijck gebrocht, ende de visitatie van de uuijtgelaeden putten gedaen, ende daernaer te betaelen als voorseijt is, is het expediëntste om een dijckagie te avancerene ende tot proffijt in volle dijckagie te brengen”).

19 Waring, George E. Jr, A Farmer's Vacation (Boston, 1876), p. 90Google Scholar.

20 De Hullu and Verhoeven, Vierlingh, p. xxxiii; Lucassen, Migrant Labour, pp. 64–71.

21 Coleman, The Railway Navvy; Handley, The Navvy, esp. p. 185; Lucassen, Migrant Labour; for Dutchmen versus Englishmen, see Handley, The Navvy, p. 169, n. 8, and Burgler, R., Sociologisch Tijdschrift, 6 (1979), pp. 51–78, esp. p. 62Google Scholar; for France: Chatelain, A., Les migrants temporaires en France de 1800 ā 1914 (Lille, 1976), pp. 863–865Google Scholar; for Irishmen from Cork against Irishmen from Connaught, see Way, Common Labour, pp. 193ff.

22 de Bruin, M. P., “Over dijkgraven en polderjongens”, Archief van het Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen, 1970, pp. 100–114Google Scholar; Andreae, S. J. Fockema, Studiën over waterschapsgeschiedenis. Vol. 3: De Grote of Zuidhollandse Waard (Leiden, 1950), p. 38Google Scholar.

23 De Bruin, “Over dijkgraven”, pp. 101, 104–105.

24 Ibid., pp. 104–107; Dekker, “Labour”, p. 408. See also Baars, C., De geschiedenis van de landbouw in de Beijerlanden (Wageningen, 1973), pp. 36–38, 46 and 58Google Scholar and van Dam, P., “Gravers, ofzetters en bierdragers. Werkgelegenheid aan de Spaarndammerdijk omstreeks 1510”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 18 (1992), pp. 447–478Google Scholar.

25 Schaer, “Zur wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Lage”.

26 Apart from the references, given already, see also Husung, H.-G., Protest und Repression im Vormärz: Norddeutschland zwischen Restauration und Revolution (Göttingen, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Dobson, C. R., Masters and Journeymen: A Prehistory of Industrial Relations 1717–1800 (London and Totowa, 1980), pp. 24, 160, 168Google Scholar.

28 Way, Common Labour; Coleman, The Railway Navvies;, Handley, The Navvy; Geelhoed, ”Spades are Trumps”; Husung, Protest.

29 Handley, The Navvy, p. 192.

30 Ibid., p. 189.

31 Dekker, R. M., “Labour Conflicts and Working Class Culture in Early Modern Holland”, International Review of Social History, XXXV (1990), pp. 377–420, esp. p. 409CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 This conclusion also applies to the seasonal work of peat digging and peat dredging in the Low Countries, see Lucassen, Migrant Labour, pp. 71ff.

33 This is discussed in the contribution by Karel Davids.

34 See also Mitterauer, M., A History of Youth (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass., 1993), pp. 123–124Google Scholar.

35 The classical work on this is Redlich, F., The German Military Enterpriser and his Work Force, 2 vols (Wiesbaden, 1964–1965)Google Scholar; P. Contamine gives a good overview of medieval mercenary recruitment in “Le Probleme des migrations des gens de guerre en Occident durant les derniers siècles du Moyen Age”, in Guarducci, Forme ed evoluzione del lavoro, pp. 459–476; for Ireland see R. Stradling, “Military Recruitment and Movement as a Form of Migration: Spain and its Irish Mercenaries, 1598–1665”, in idem, pp. 477–490.

36 Discussed in Schelbert, L., Einführung in die schweizerische Auswanderungsgeschichte der Neuzeit (Zurich, 1976), p. 155Google Scholar.

37 Head, A.-L., “Integration ou exclusion: le dilemme des soldats suisses au service de France”, in Bairoch, P. and Körner, M. (eds), La Suisse dans l'économie mondiale (Geneva, 1990), pp. 37–55Google Scholar; Head-König, A.-L., “Hommes et femmes dans la migration: la mobilité des Suisses dans leur pays et en Europe (1600–1900)”, in First European Conference of the International Commission on Historical Demography (Santiago de Compostela, 1993), pp. 205–225Google Scholar.

38 Braun, R., Das Ausgehende Ancien Régime in der Schweiz: Aufriss einer Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen and Zurich, 1984), pp. 43–44Google Scholar; Redlich, The German Military Enterpriser, I, pp. 115–140; Bundi, M., Bündner Kriegsdienste in Holland um 1700: Eine Studie zu den Beziehungen zwischen Holland und Graübilnden von 1693 bis 1730 (Chur, 1972), pp. 129 and 135ffGoogle Scholar.

39 Smout, T. C., “Scots as Emigrants in Europe 1400–1700”, in Cavaciocchi, S. (ed.), Le migrazioni in Europa secc. XIII-XVIII (Prato, 1994), pp. 659–669Google Scholar.

40 Smout, “Scots”, pp. 665–666.

41 Ibid., p. 661.

42 Redlich, German Military Enterpriser, II, pp. 213–214.

43 Ibid., pp. 80–86, 254ff.

44 Only one of many examples: Dekker, R., Holland in beroering. Oproeren in de 17de en 18de eeuw (Baarn, 1982), pp. 76–78Google Scholar.

45 For a discussion of the degree to which mining and related activities are part of the urban or the non-urban world, see Michael Mitterauer, “Produktionsweise, Siedlungsstruktur und Sozialformen im österreichischen Montanwesen des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit”, in Mitterauer, M. (ed.), Österreichisches Montanwesen: Produktion, Verteiling, Sozialformen (Munich, 1974), pp. 234–315, esp. pp. 234–260Google Scholar (also in Mitterauer, M., Grundtypen alteuropäischer Sozialformen. Haus und Gemeinde in vorindustriellen Gesellschaftsformen (Stuttgart and Bad Cannstatt, 1979), pp. 148–193Google Scholar; Tenfelde, K., “Bergarbeiterkultur in Deutschland. Ein Überblick”, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 5 (1979), pp. 12–53, esp. p, 19Google Scholar.

46 Garmy, R., La “mine aux mineurs” de Rancié (1789–1848) (Paris, 1970), pp. 27–30, 36–38Google Scholar.

47 Ibid., p. 39: “fruit de leur travail […] qui ne prend source que dans leurs forces”; see also p. 73.

48 Ibid., pp. 184–186.

49 Fisher, C., “The Free Miners of the Forest of Dean 1800–1841”, in Harrison, R. (ed.), Independent Collier: The Coal Miner as Archetypal Proletarian Reconsidered (Hassocks, 1978), pp. 17–53Google Scholar. See also Wood, A., “Social Conflict and Change in the Mining Communities of North-West Derbyshire, c. 1600–1700”, International Review of Social History, 38 (1993), pp. 31–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Samuel, “Mineral Workers”, p. 49.

51 M. Jones, “Y chwarelwyr: The Slate Quarrymen of North Wales”, in Samuel, Miners, pp. 99–135.

52 Ibid., p. 110.

53 For Germany: Sieg'l, C., Arbeitskämpfe seit dem Spätmittelater (Cologne [etc.], 1993), pp. 46–53Google Scholar and Tenfelde, “Bergarbeiterkultur”, pp. 20–28.

54 Mitterauer, “Produktionsweise”, p. 272.

55 Sieg'l, Arbeitskämpfe, p. 80; Mitterauer, “Produktionsweise”, pp. 264–267.

56 Sieg'l, Arbeitskämpfe; p. 80; Mitterauer, “Produktionsweise”, pp. 280–281 (including the hospital founded in 1510 in Schwaz by the miners' brotherhoodl) and 314.

57 Sieg'l, Arbeitskämpfe, pp. 78–83. However, this author emphasizes the relative weakness of the miners, as compared to the yeomen organizations in the towns. Most recently, cf. the articles by Karant-Nunn, S. C. and by Vanja, C., in Safley, T. M. and Rosenband, L. N. (eds), The Workplace before the Factory: Artisans and Proletarians 1500–1800 (Ithaca and London, 1993)Google Scholar.

58 Ibid., pp. 140 and 122–126 for a summary.

59 Mitterauer, “Produktionsweise”, pp. 281–282.

60 For example, the Kurkölnische Bergordnung of 1669 (Sieg'l, Arbeitskämpfe, pp. 141–142); also see Baumgärtel, H., Bergbau und Absolutismus. Der sächsische Bergbau in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts und Massnahmen zu seiner Verbesserung nach dem siebenjährigen Kriege (Leipzig, 1963), pp. 43–51Google Scholar; Tenfelde, “Bergarbeiterkultur”, pp. 25–26.

61 Levine, D. and Wrightson, K., The Making of an Industrial Society: Whickham 1560–1765 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 390ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.; see also Smout, “Scots”, pp. 665 and 668 who stresses that many of the keelmen on Tyneside were Scottish.

62 Campbell, A. B., The Lanarkshire Miners: A Social History of their Trade Unions, 1775–1874 (Edinburgh, 1979), p. 52Google Scholar.

63 Ibid., p. 51; Jones, “Y chwarelwyr”, p. 119.

64 Campbell, The Lanarkshire Miners, pp. 2–5; the following mainly after Whatley, C. A., “The Fettering Bonds of Brotherhood': Combination and Labour Relations in the Scottish Coal Mining Industry c. 1630–1775”, Social History, 12 (1987), pp. 139–154CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 See already for Germany in the late Middle Ages: Ulf Dirlmeier, “Zu den Bedingungen der Lohnarbeit im spätmittelalterlichen Deutschland”, in Guarducci, Forme ed evoluzione del lavoro, pp. 521–558, esp. pp. 539 and 544 (“daily wages were not typical for late medieval wage labourers”).

66 Husung, Protest, p. 166 gives an example in north-western Germany in 1846–1847.

67 At least in Europe. For the predominance of time wages in early modem America see Way, Common Labour.

68 Schloss, D. F., Methods of Industrial Remuneration (London and Edinburgh, 1892), p. 87Google Scholar and the third revised and enlarged edition of 1898, pp. 155–165 with many examples from different countries in Europe; another classic is Bernhard, L., Die Akkordarbeit in Deutschland (Leipzig, 1903)Google Scholar; also see R. Samuel, “Mineral workers”, pp. 33ff. and 48ff.

69 Schloss, Methods.

70 Ibid., 1892, pp. 82–86 and 1898, pp. 147–153.

71 Ibid., 1892, pp. 101–103 defines as “sweated-labour” those cases of subcontracting, in which all workers are employed by the same employer and not by their own “contractor” (who, he seems to imply, can also work for more than one employer). Littler, C. R., The Development of the Labour Process in Capitalist Societies. A Contparatve Study of the Transformation of Work Organization in Britain, Japan and the USA (London, 1982), pp. 64ffGoogle Scholar. makes a distinction between “internal subcontract” where the workers are united on one spot and “external subcontract” or “outwork”, the last of which is the real “sweated-labour”.

72 Taylor, A. J., “The Sub-contract System in the British Coal Industry”, in Presnell, L. S. (ed.), Studies in the Industrial Revolution presented to T. S. Ashton (London, 1960), p. 234Google Scholar; Littler, The Development, pp. 70–72; Schloss, Methods, 1898, p. 202.

73 I conclude this from Schloss, Methods, 1898, p. 202 where he states that the majority of the wage earners in the British Isles receives one or the other form of piece or task wage and ibid., p. 43 where he affirmatively quotes a report of 1894 that says: “Taken as a whole, the system of time-work appears to be the most extensive method of wage-payment in the United Kingdom”.

74 In England in the building trades, piece wages seem to have been introduced only from the 1870s on; see Price, R., Masters, Unions and Men. Work Control in Building and the Rise of Labour 1830–1914 (Cambridge, 1980), e.g. p. 83CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the Netherlands, see Knotter, A., “De Amsterdamse bouwnijverheid in de 19e eeuw tot ca. 1870. Loonstarheid en trekarbeid op een dubbele arbeidsmarkt”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 10 (1984), pp. 123–154Google Scholar.

75 Pollard, S., The Genesis of Modern Management. A Study of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain (Harmondsworth, 1968), pp. 51–63Google Scholar.

76 For example, Taylor, “The Sub-contract System”, p. 234 and Wright, T., “‘A Method of Evading Management’ – Contract Labor in Chinese Coal Mines before 1937”, Comparative Studies in Societies and History, 23 (1981), pp. 656–678CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. p. 678, are in favour of this theory; Pollard, The Genesis is not clear; Littler, The Development is rather seeptical.

77 See note 76, but especially Wright, “‘A Method’”, pp. 657, 665 and 669–670.

78 Sonenscher, M., Work and Wages. Natural Law, Politics and the Eighteenth-Century French Trades (Cambridge [etc.], 1989Google Scholar.

79 Price, Masters, Unions and Men, p. 30. He does not see the complementarity as Sonenscher does, but rather – at least in the building trade – “subcontracting” as putting into practice the general contract; see also Montgomery, D., Workers' Control in America. Studies in the History of Work, Technology, and Labor Struggles (Cambridge [etc.], 1979), p. 16Google Scholar. Some authors have gone so far as to define a certain size of firm as the most ideal for subcontracting proper or co-operative work. They emphasize the fact that these were not the smallest, nor the largest enterprises, but particularly the medium-sized ones. Taylor for instance points to mines of between sixty and seventy workers as an example. A. J. Taylor, “The Sub-contract System”; see also Wright, “‘A Method’”, pp. 665–666.