27.09.2022

New EGO article: "Arbeits- und Wirtschaftsmigrationen in der Frühen Neuzeit" by Klaus Weber

On Europäische Geschichte Online (EGO), the new English-language article "International Social Movements Before 1945" by Stefan Berger has been published under the auspices of the IEG.
People in pre-modern Europe were very mobile, despite restrictions in many places, for example due to serfdom. Highly qualified craftsmen and simple workers moved to regions with higher wages, merchants to more lucrative markets - seasonally or permanently. Regional conditions thus caused the formation of certain migration systems. Mobility, however, is not always an indicator of freedom. Serfs and convicts were often taken to remote places by the authorities, e.g. for infrastructure projects. Poverty turned many into wandering beggars and day labourers with inferior legal status. Modernity and pre-modernity are reflected in such phenomena in a striking way.

Picture: Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris, http://www.parismuseescollections.paris.fr/fr/musee-carnavalet/oeuvres/la-conduite-des-filles-de-joie-a-la-salpetriere-le-passage-pres-de-la-porte#infos-principales, public domain.