Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: Scottish society in perspective
- 1 Population mobility in early modern Scotland
- 2 Scottish food and Scottish history, 1500–1800
- 3 Continuity and change in urban society, 1500–1700
- 4 Women in the economy and society of Scotland, 1500–1800
- 5 Social responses to agrarian ‘improvement’: the Highland and Lowland clearances in Scotland
- 6 ‘Pretense of blude’ and ‘place of thair dwelling’: the nature of highland clans, 1500–1745
- 7 North and south: the development of the gulf in Poor Law practice
- 8 Scotland and Ireland, 1600–1800: their role in the evolution of British society
- 9 Kindred adjoining kingdoms: an English perspective on the social and economic history of early modern Scotland
- Bibliography of printed sources and secondary works
- Index
1 - Population mobility in early modern Scotland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: Scottish society in perspective
- 1 Population mobility in early modern Scotland
- 2 Scottish food and Scottish history, 1500–1800
- 3 Continuity and change in urban society, 1500–1700
- 4 Women in the economy and society of Scotland, 1500–1800
- 5 Social responses to agrarian ‘improvement’: the Highland and Lowland clearances in Scotland
- 6 ‘Pretense of blude’ and ‘place of thair dwelling’: the nature of highland clans, 1500–1745
- 7 North and south: the development of the gulf in Poor Law practice
- 8 Scotland and Ireland, 1600–1800: their role in the evolution of British society
- 9 Kindred adjoining kingdoms: an English perspective on the social and economic history of early modern Scotland
- Bibliography of printed sources and secondary works
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Population mobility has attracted the attention of social and economic historians and historical geographers seeking to understand past societies. Levels and patterns of geographical mobility reflect many aspects of social conditions and are in turn an important influence on society. Geographical mobility is closely linked to social mobility, together demonstrating the degree to which past societies were fixed and rigid or fluid and permeable. Population mobility is also closely linked as both a dependent and an independent variable to family and household structures, regional contrasts in agricultural systems, holding structures and patterns of rural industry, and levels of urbanisation and is therefore an important social indicator and determinant.
Recent research has altered the image of geographical mobility in pre-industrial European societies, overturning past preconceptions which regarded them as being static and immobile. Studies of rural mobility and migration to the towns have shown that movement was normal, particularly among younger people, though often over limited distances. For early modern England, population mobility has been linked to the development of the economy and society in the prelude to the Industrial Revolution. Given that Scotland underwent major social and economic changes between the sixteenth and later eighteenth centuries, the question arises as to whether the scale and pattern of mobility in Scotland was comparable with England or, more generally, with the patterns which have been identified more widely in Western Europe.
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- Scottish Society, 1500–1800 , pp. 37 - 58Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989
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