The first good evidence of a developing pattern of dispersed settlement in the countryside dates to 1811, when roughly 37 percent of the population had taken up residence outside the walls and urban extramural neighborhoods of Locorotondo (see Chapter 6). In the decades which followed, the occupation of the countryside continued, culminating in the patterns described in Chapter 2. This chapter will examine evidence about settlement pattern, economy, and social structure before the early nineteenth century, and establish a baseline from which the important changes of that century can be better understood.

KINDS OF EVIDENCE

Before beginning this historical discussion, it is important to consider the general nature of documentary evidence for the area. The research reported here is designed in an opposite fashion to many other studies of South Italian history. Often historians choose problems to investigate because they know about a rich data source. Here, instead, was an anthropological topic – how Locorotondo's settlement pattern came about, and the particular social organizational patterns and problems which accompanied that development – and the problem became making the best of what historical documents are available. The historical record for any locale is a patchy thing; outstanding evidence may cluster around certain dates, and there may be long spans of time upon which documents cast little or no light. This is true for Locorotondo. Aside from some fragmentary evidence, reviewed below, a dark space gapes between the sixteenth century and the early eighteenth.